The Truth In Old Saws
by ObsidianJade
Summary: Any old ghost story Hollywood's ever spit out, you'll hear the phrase 'unfinished business'. Funny part is? Hollywood got something right. That's why, thirty-some years later, I'm still here by my partner's side. Blade/Nick. (Or: Nick is dead. But it hasn't slowed him down in the least.) Part Two of the Hallowed 'verse.


Any old ghost story Hollywood's ever spit out, you'll hear the phrase 'unfinished business'. Funny part is? Hollywood got something right. That's why, thirty-some years later, I'm still here by my partner's side.

(Or: Nick is dead. But it hasn't slowed him down in the least.)

Disclaimer: The Cars/Planes Universe and all characters and settings contained are owned by Disney/Pixar. I make no claims to ownership and no profit from this work. Warnings: A few heavy themes including Nick's death, Blade's depression, and injuries sustained by Blade, Dusty, and Nick. Some mention/implication of PTSD and survivor guilt. Also contains passing references to 'Saving Tomorrow', which you do not need to read for this to make sense. (Particularly since I'm not sure it makes sense anyway.)

 **THE TRUTH IN OLD SAWS**

Unfinished business.

Any old ghost story Hollywood's ever spit out, you'll hear that phrase. Unfinished business, that's what's tying the poor unfortunate soul to the Earth and keepin' them from moving on to that great highway in the sky.

Or skyway in the sky, if you're an airframe. Either way, same concept.

You learn some surprising stuff when you're dead, lemme tell ya. Like, the fact that there's truth in those old saws. Unfinished business does keep a ghost hangin' around. That, and _home is where the heart is_.

I should back up a little and introduce myself, I guess. Nick Lopez, at your service. Yeah, Loopin' Lopez. The dead guy.

And my unfinished business? Well... it's the same as my home. Currently red, white, and cranky all over, none other than my old partner, Blazin' Blade.

The red is a nice change, but the cranky doesn't look nearly so good on him.

What, my unfinished business? No, I'm not hangin' around trying to drag Blaze off into the afterlife with me. Shut off the damn Blue Oyster Cult. I've been haunting his aft for the last few decades trying to keep him _alive_.

Which, given Blade's general disposition, not to mention his current job description, is a lot harder than you'd think.

Take right now, for instance. I'm hanging around, incorporeal, invisible, and utterly helpless, watching my old partner trying to _roast himself alive inside a collapsing mineshaft_.

The little plane behind him looks almost as terrified as I feel, even with Blade blocking the flames from reaching him. The fire goes right through me, and for all that a ghost acts like some kind of supernatural air conditioner, I'm not doing a damn thing to help him.

Story of my life.

There's a creak and a crash from somewhere above us - not the good kind of above - and an avalanche of ash and debris and then the light is gone.

It's like dying all over again.

For the longest time - and time doesn't have a lot of meaning when you're a ghost, lemme tell you, it's not like you're getting any older over here - there's a whole lot of nothing, just smoke and dust and panic, and where Blade's presence has always been at the back of my mind I can't feel a damned thing.

I don't realize I'm screaming until the kid's voice joins me in the chorus, both of us shouting Blade's name, each of us at least as afraid as the other. I can't see any more than the living can in this ashy darkness, and don't quite figure out where I am in relation to Blade until my nose dips into something warm and alive, and Blade makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a yelp and shudders back to consciousness around me.

"Blade?" The kid's voice is shaking, thin and panicky in the dark, trapped behind the collapsed wall of the mineshaft and a semiconscious helicopter.

"I'm fine," Blade answers, and those words are almost always a lie, but not usually such a stupid-obvious one, Blaze, give the kid a little credit, would ya? You sound like Maru's been sandpapering your throat from the inside.

The kid wiggles a little, or a lot, and even I feel like I need to sneeze with all the ash in the air even though I haven't had physical sinuses for probably longer than this kid's been alive, and I can hear him open his mouth to say something - probably something unhelpful, because there's nothing helpful to say in this situation - but Blade cuts him off.

"Hold on. I'll get us out of here."

"How -" the kid begins, and is promptly cut off by Blade _slamming his side against the blockage,_ Chrysler, you idiot, you're gonna snap a rotor, and that's your burned side, are you tryin' to kill yourself?! You're a helicopter, not a bulldoz - huh. Light.

And oh sweet Ford, what it shows.

The kid is scared, but not as scared as he should be when he sees Blade's side, listens to Blade telling him that they can _fly back to the base_ , and Chrysler, if I can get through to him I'm making him mandate basic first-aid courses, because anyone with half a grasp of anatomy would know that anything hot enough to to that to metal is going to have destroyed any of the softer bits, and for all that Blade thinks that him not saving me from my own mistakes is what drives him, he's not really helping other people avoid what he went through and oh, Ford, his tail rotor's not working, he's not gonna - pull up, Blaze, pull - oh, Ford, oh, Chrysler, anybody up there, please just don't let him die, _please, please don't let him die._

* * *

Maru talks to himself almost constantly - it's when he's silent that you have to worry. That's something that hasn't changed since the Hollywood days, when he'd had a red cross on his side and spent half his time yelling at me for the stupid crap I pulled when the cameras were off. And occasionally when they were on, too. Some of that stupid crap made it on the show, and one particular piece became my signature move.

Also the thing that killed me, but y'know. Stuff happens.

Actually, the first time I can remember Maru being silent while he worked was just after my own crash, when I'd found myself at Blade's side, staring at my own body, Maru slipping in the fire foam, silent except for his breathing as he tore me open and tried to save me.

Right now, Maru's tines-deep in Blade's side, muttering up a storm, while I'm pacing back and forth through the wall of his workshop. Being incorporeal is fun, sometimes. Except for times like earlier, when I would have done anything to be able to block the flames from hurting him, and they went through me like I was nothing.

Not great for a guy's ego, I'll tell you that. I drift back to Blade, peering over Maru's roof to try to see how things are going, and Maru shivers when I brush through him.

"Hanging over me ain't gonna get this done any faster, you realize," he shouts, and if I were solid I'd've given Blade a new dent or six from jumping with my nose inside his hatch. I've been hanging around Maru for decades just by default - he hasn't left Blade's side since I died - but he's never talked to me, never given any acknowledgement that he knows I'm here. Gotten drunk and cussed out my memory a few dozen times, sure, but -

"I'm not hanging over anything, you're just short."

Oh. Cabbie. At the front of the bay, throwing a shadow. One that matches up pretty neatly with the line of my belly where it slid through Maru's roof. Cabbie looks Blade over as best he can, his gaze skimming through me like it always does, worry hidden in his expression but not his eyes.

Maru cusses him out a little, his way of expressing both stress and affection, bellows for Pinecone and Drip to get him a few more supplies and then get out of his bay, it's too crowded in here, how do they expect him to focus?

Another shadow overlaps Cabbie's as Windlifter rolls up to the door, carry harness gone, and glances around the interior of the bay. His eyes don't slide over me - his gaze locks with mine easy as breathing, just like it has since the first damn time I saw him. Blade had touched down here at Piston Peak, his certification so new his red paint had barely dried, and this big ol' green guy had rolled up, looked at him, _looked at me_ , and said _'The spirit of your past follows you closely.'_ Then he just rolled off again, not another word.

Blade figured Winds had read one too many tabloids and was pissy with him for the first two months. It ended after the first time Windlifter saved his life, but the damn Skycrane is allergic to straight talk, and even if I asked him to, I don't think he'd be willing to explain to Blade that the ghost of his dead partner has been all but glued to his tail rotor for thirty-odd years. Not if he couldn't phrase it in some obscure, vaguely mythical-sounding riddle, at least.

I drift my way out of the bay and settle down next to Windlifter, watching his eyes track me the whole way. "You'd better get back on those fires," I mutter, keeping my voice low even though it'll be a cold day in the smelting pits before anyone else overhears my half of a conversation here. "Blade's gonna be pissed if he wakes up and finds you've let the park burn down while he's napping."

Windlifter sighs at that, heavy enough to dip on his gear, and turns to look up at the tower before clicking on his radio. "Patch, come down. We'll need your help to reload."

* * *

They squeeze in three more runs before full dark. And I'll give Windlifter this, the big guy is just as dedicated a leader as Blade is - he's the last one back, shepherding Dusty and Dipper in ahead of him out of the the black sky. They're tired, and all of 'em land heavy, looking like they've got the weight of the world in their tanks.

Maru's in the middle of getting Blade settled in his hanger when they hit the tarmac, and even from up the hill I can hear the kid start to panic when he sees the bay empty. Dynamite points him in the right direction, and he rolls straight through me and nearly over top of Maru as he crests the hill to check on Blade. Kid's loyal as anybody I've ever met, that's for sure.

Well, loyalty's always been Maru's meter for judging people worthy, and I guess the kid passes, because I hear my name mentioned. I don't tend to hang around when Blade's sleeping; there's nothing I can do to stop his nightmares, and just sitting around and watching him have them makes me feel worse.

So I follow them down, listen to Maru give the most abbreviated version of _that day_ that I've ever heard. He doesn't mention any of the pain and fear that anyone felt. Doesn't mention Blade screaming as the fire from my crash licked around his face as he tried to reach me, or him pleading and praying as the emergency crews got there. Doesn't say how hard Blade fought when they dragged him away from my body. Doesn't say that Blade's the one who knocked out Maru's tooth, trying to get back to me.

Certainly he doesn't mention following Blade up to the top of the same building I'd gone down in front of that evening and convincing him not to drop himself off the damn roof. That's not the kid's business, anyway.

But Maru tells the kid enough, and leaves him to sit there and stare at my picture while he sorts it all out in his head. I sit next to him, nothing but the silence around us until the siren blares.

* * *

I've jammed myself into the tower booth with Patch to listen to the radio when the call comes in about the RVs, and I've got a sick feeling in my nonexistent guts before the report's even finished. It about triples when I hear Dusty's response. Get there fastest, yeah, with your damn busted gearbox that nobody here currently alive or conscious is aware of, and save two idiots from a flaming deathtrap. That's gonna work real well, kid.

And that sick feeling triples again when I see lights come on in Blade's hanger.

* * *

There are times when I hate being right.

* * *

It's a long, long night. Getting Dusty out of the trees is nightmarish without the help of the Jumpers, but they're still tied up at the opposite end of the park, keeping the guests safe from the Superintendent's stupidity. Windlifter and Blade manage, but it takes hours, and the sun's already up over the park by the time we all start back. The light shows the effort of the relief teams that came in overnight; we're flying back over embers, not flames.

Just as well those relief crews came in, too, since Blade's in no shape to even be off the ground, big damn hero moments or no, and Dipper, crazy stalker that she is, is acting like her wheels have fused to the cement outside the repair bay, and flat-out refuses when Blade tells her to get back to work. I spend while pacing back and forth through her in retaliation, and she shivers in the sun but stays.

Watching her sit and tremble on her wheels makes me think too much of watching Blade, those first few weeks after my crash, when he was too numb to do anything but sit and shake with pain and regret, and I can't keep up my anger.

After a while I give up and drift back to Blade's hanger. He's sitting on his gear at an angle that suggests near-unconscious collapse more than deliberately falling asleep, so I hunker down in the corner and just watch him. If he's done something stupid to himself and not mentioned it - because clearly that never happens around here - I can always get Windlifter to give Maru a heads-up. I'm sure he could figure out a way to make it sound suitable obscure and mystical. Big guy's good like that.

* * *

But Blade's stupidity goes unpunished, if you don't count the TMST investigation, at least until Maru declares that he's done as much as he can with Dusty for right now and drags Blade into the bay to make him pretty again. Blade jerks away from the first touch of the cutting torch so hard he almost lifts off without the benefit of his rotors turning, Maru threatens to knock him unconscious and paint him pink, Blade threatens to sit on him if he tries, and they go on bantering at the top of their lungs until the fear leaves Blade's eyes and even Windlifter, very studiously lifting logs across the runway, is having trouble keeping a straight face.

He'll be okay. Well, for Blade values of okay, anyway, which anyone sane would probably think were pretty bad. For the record, I think they're pretty bad, and I'm not exactly sane, either. But he's still here, still flying, still getting the job done. Blade-okay is good enough.

Now, if the kid would just wake up...

* * *

"Not gonna lie, I'm gettin' worried."

It's nearing midnight, the clock ticking around on day five of Dusty's coma, and Blade and Maru are tucked up in Blade's hanger. Maru's here on the excuse of giving Blade another checkup, but it's more to escape Dipper. Hard to discuss the kid's condition with ears like hers a couple lengths away.

"You think he should be awake by now." It's not a question, but Maru nods anyway, tipping back a mouthful of high-grade that probably could've knocked a payloader on its bumper. He's sitting across from Blade, at just enough of an angle that he's staring at a spot on the wall about two inches from the tip of my nose. It's weirdly like being included.

"Yeah. I've been talking to his mechanic about some of his mods - whaddya know about his first Rally win?"

Blade just shakes his head. Dipper's given him and anybody else in earshot every piece of Dusty trivia she can slap her eyes on about a thousand times over, but Blade's pretty good at tuning out anything that doesn't deal with wildfires and angsting.

"Okay, well, he tries to fly through a hurricane - yeah, I know, it goes about as well as you'd expect. So this friggin' kid gets knocked into the ocean, nearly drowns, has to get about half his body mass in replacement parts just to get back in the air, including his wings and prop, and then wins the rally from behind dead last _within a day_. I know he took some knocks going into those trees on top of two rounds of smoke inhalation, but even with everything I've done, by all rights he should've been awake days ago."

Maru's very loudly not-saying something, and Blade and I both know him well enough to see it, but I figure it out while Blade's still trying to stare a hole through Maru's roof and just read the thoughts out of his head.

"You think he doesn't wanna wake up."

Maru blinks once, real slow, and I could almost trick myself into thinking he'd heard me if I didn't have three decades of practice at being ignored.

"You think he doesn't want to wake up."

Chrysler, Blade, I just said that!

"It's all I can think of," Maru sighs. "He's been stable for two days now. The last major issue was his gearbox, but it went back in with no complications. There's no reason for someone with his..." Maru waves his unoccupied tine like he's trying to catch the word out of midair.

"Constitution?"

"Yeah, thanks. No reason for someone with his constitution still to be unconscious. Unless he's just... not bothering to wake up."

"Do you think that's likely?"

The wave is a little more aggressive, this time. I've seen the same movement with a brandished wrench clenched in his tine, and if Blade's wince is any indication, he remembers it pretty damn well, too. "Think about it from his perspective, you idiot. Half the park that he's volunteered to help protect has gone up in flames, the chief protector of said park was severely injured on his account because he failed to mention a career-ending injury, and he just took a header through half an acre of pine forest! His last thought as he hit the ground was probably that he was never gonna fly again, so yes, I think it's likely!"

Blade didn't have a comeback to that, not that I expected him to. He's been there too, y'know? Maru was the one who saved him then, and just kept on doing it. And there's no medic in the world that's gonna bat a thousand, but Maru's pulled their tails out of the fire more times than I think anyone else could have managed. He's stubborn enough to tell Death to take a backseat, even when some of us have invited it to drive.

...mind you, not that much different from what I've done, is it? I mean, Ford knows I'm definitely dead, but I'm still here, too.

Hmmm. Maybe it's time to see if I can take a little of the burden off Maru. 'Cuz I've had a thought that just might be crazy enough to work...

* * *

I hang around Blade for a while more; thirty-some years and I've never lost the trick of just enjoying his presence. It's what's kept me down here, and what's kept me sane. Sane-ish, anyway. I know the plan in my head is crazy, and I've got no idea how it's gonna turn out. Could work like a charm, could do nothing, could maybe make stuff worse, although I don't think that one's too likely. And I don't usually need to psych myself up to try something stupid, but I figure if this does all go tail-up, at least my last night will've been a good one.

When Blade stirs himself awake just past dawn, I brush my rotors through his and head for the repair bay.

* * *

I don't have the first clue of what's gonna happen when I drop into the same space as Dusty, but finding myself transported from the Piston Peak base to a rural airstrip bordered by cornfields definitely isn't what I expect.

Doubly not because the buildings along the airstrip are all _on fire_.

It's a wall of flames, almost as huge and terrifying as the one that Blade and Dusty faced down days ago, sweeping through the buildings, sparks leaping the runway to start the cornfield blazing.

What scares me most isn't the roar of the fire, though. It's the screams.

All around us, there are cars and planes fleeing the fire, but front and center, half-in, half-out of a collapsed building with a smoke-blackened sign, are some of them didn't make it out fast enough. A fuel truck, the gull-wing shape of an old Corsair, and two little forklifts. There's a fire truck not far from them, looking like he'd been headed for the water tower, hoses blackened and melted into the tar.

And Dusty's there, in the midst of the fire, in front of all those burned wrecks, crying so hard he's shaking on his tires, screaming denials into the fire.

Then the flames twist up, around both of us, and we're back in the mine, watching Blade shield Dusty from the flames, but this time it's different. It's worse, and Dusty's screaming again, breathless and choking on smoke and grief, and if Blade felt half this much grief when he watched me go then I'm amazed he listened to Maru at all, and I know this is just a dream -

Dream, it's just a dream, just a nightmare, not even my nightmare, it's the kid's, Blade isn't dying in front of me, just need to snap the kid out of it -

WHAP

I didn't think about it ahead of time, which is probably for the best. I'm not sure it would have worked if I had. But I just wanted to smack some sense into the kid, never stopped to think until I felt my rotor connect with his canopy.

Felt. Frigging hurt!

"Ow?!"

That's surprise and not pain, but it at least snapped him out of it. Up side, flames have disappeared! Down side, so has Blade, but at least this way I don't have to watch my own worst nightmare in someone else's head.

"Get us outta this mine, kid, before it makes us both loony," I snap at him, using my 'I am a police officer, don't disobey me' voice, still not stopping to think. Like I said, not always my strong point. It works, though - quick as blinking, the mine is gone, and we're back in the kid's hanger at the Base.

"What the -" Dusty's looking around like he's expecting everything to spontaneously combust. If my dreams had been like this for five days straight, I think I'd've woken up just to get away from them, risk of being flightless or not.

"Deep breaths, kid. You're dreaming. Well, you're having nightmares, anyway."

"I'm -" Deep breaths, at least the kid can follow orders, still panicky but not so fast he's gonna pass out. "Everyone was burning, Propwash Junction, Blade, it's all my fault -"

"No, no, no, and no. Blade's arguing with Maru over coffee, he's fine. And trust me, he can take as many stupid risks as the next chopper. Nothin' he did for you was your fault, kid. Nobody's blaming you but you. An' I don't know about Propwash - that was the place with the cornfield?"

He actually nods in response, which is good, since I didn't figure he was really listening.

"Like I said, I don't know, but since all this is your worst nightmares of guilt come true, I'm willing to bet that Propwash is safe and sound, and all your folks with it."

He gives a rattly little nod, still shaking so bad that I'm half-afraid he's gonna knock something loose.

"Who's the Corsair?"

"Who - what?"

"Corsair. Plane. Guy with the foldin' wings. I can't exactly demonstrate, kid, help me out here."

"Oh, um, that's, that's Skipper." A deep breath and a nervous swallow. "He's my flight coach, one of the Jolly Wrenches."

One of the who what now? Not important, I guess. I keep poking the kid with questions, the fuel truck, the fire truck, the two forks, find out enough about his extended family that I could at least identify them all by sight. I recognize Mayday's name, at least. He's the one who trained Blade - and the one whose voice on the radio started this mess.

This goes on for almost ten minutes before the kid actually looks at me, and his eyes get so big it looks like it hurts. "Wai - aren't you Nick Lopez?!"

Wow, kid's quick on the uptake, isn't he?

"Sure am, kid. You got a name?" Not like I don't know it - even if Blade does refuse to use it - but it's probably more polite to ask.

"I'm Dusty." A pause, a blink. "I mean, my name is Dusty, Dusty Crophopper. Although I'm probably kinda dusty, too, I mean, didn't I crash?" Another pause and suddenly the _oh-slag_ reaction washes over his face so fast that I almost blow a seal trying not to laugh, 'cuz, bad timing much?

"You're dead!"

Like I said, quick on the uptake.

"Am I dead?" he asks, all wide-eyed innocence and blind panic, and I've barely got my mouth open to answer him when a third voice cuts in.

"By all rights, you ought to be."

What the -?! I swing around fast enough that my vision spins, and sure enough, there's Blade, my old Blaze 'cuz he's sitting cocked on his tires, easy and smug, but wearing his reds, and this ain't helping the spinning in my head any.

"Blaze?" When all he does is give me that look, the 'how dumb are you, son', look that he's perfected since Hollywood, I start falling over my tongue as bad as some stupid groupie. "Blaze, man, what're you - how are you -"

"I'm just a subconscious manifestation of the kid's feelings of guilt and inadequacy," Blade answers, straight-faced and deadpan. "What's your excuse?"

Behind us, the kid makes a noise like he'd like to argue but can't quite bring himself to disagree. I'm starting to wonder if Blaze - if the subconscious whatever the heck of Blade - has a point.

"But -"

"You're not dead, Champ," sighs Blade, all Blade now, tough and tired. "They're waiting on you to wake up. Might even find Maru's made it worth your while if you can drag your eyes open."

Dusty's chewing on his cheek, looking worried, eyes darting from Blade to me and back again. "But how are you -"

"I told you what I am. Nick I'm not so sure about."

Story of my life, edition two. "I'm dead."

And, ouch, Blade could've just used that glare to freeze the fire in its tracks. "I'm aware."

"No, I'm a _ghost_ , you moron! I've been following you around for decades trying to make sure you didn't do anything monumentally stupid and get your damn self killed just because I had!" A deep breath while they're staring at me, wide-eyed. "You keep blaming yourself because I made a mistake, something you couldn't have saved me from anyway, you heard Maru, and you've got good people here, good friends that would risk their lives for you, and all you can think about is one mistake that someone else made a lifetime ago, and you need to get over it!"

Wider eyes than ever, now, from both of them, and before my eyes, the paint along Blade's side begins to blister, metal warping, the wounds from the fire and the crash that Maru already fixed twisting him out of shape, Dusty behind me making a sound like those burns are on his own body, and Blade's image twists again until they're not the same wounds, not his side and his belly but across his nose, up the side of his face, his front tire melted, and I roll backwards, teeth clenched against the sudden sickness twisting my tanks, because those are the burns he got trying to save _me_.

"We all need to get over it," he tells me, voice slurred from the burns across his mouth, flickering for a second back to my Blaze, blue and white with his glasses on before he flashes back to red, uninjured and disdainful, and disappears entirely.

"Wha... what just happened?!"

The kid sounds pretty rattled, not that I blame him. I kinda feel like I was just groundside during an earthquake myself. "I think we just got told off by a figment of your imagination."

" _You're_ a figment of my imagination!"

Kid gets shrill when he's panicky. Shrill and unconvincing.

"Nice try, kid, but no. Real live ghost here."

The look he gives me for that one is almost as deadpan as something Blade could manage. Good, means his brain is still turned on. I was wondering for a few seconds there.

"You're not serious."

"As engine failure. Or gearbox failure, in your case." And Ford help me, but I never wanna see anything like that again, either. "Look," I add, when I see him start to get annoyed, "the, ah, subconscious manifestation of your imagination was right. You're alive, you're gonna wake up, life's gonna be good. Just... do me a favor, okay, and tell Blaze something for me? Have him mandate field first-aid training for you idiots, would ya? Maru'd have a lot less mess on his hands if you guys could figure out how to make good calls in the field."

He winces at that, probably guessing what I'm talking about, but nods. After a second, though, he blinks and glances back to me. "You call him Blaze, not Blade?"

I start to grin at that, but it falls off my face the second I start to think about it. "I did back then, yeah. He wasn't the same guy you know now. Smiled more, laughed a lot, tended to run hot, if ya know what I mean." I shoot him a wink and my smarmiest grin with that, so there's no chance he could mistake my meaning.

He doesn't, and makes a brain-bleach-please kinda face that sets me off laughing. "Thank you _so much_ for that image, Nick."

Heey, sarcasm, look's like the kid's feeling better! I drop my voice a little, give him the best wink-wink-nudge-nudge impression I can manage without trying to bump him, 'cuz I'm not sure I can actually touch him if I think too much, and whisper, "Have that Dipper chick show you some of her fanfiction sometime, she's actually got a pretty good idea of -"

"Waking up now, bye!" And he disappears, quick as blinking, and all the sudden I'm back in the shop with Maru and Dipper and Dusty, blinking himself back to consciousness.

* * *

It takes until that night before he can talk to Blade in peace, which doesn't surprise me. There are a lotta people wishing him well, a radio call from home - which they don't mention being on fire so is presumably okay - that lasts for an hour. His mechanic reams him out for not actually _telling_ Blade or Maru about his gearbox sooner, which is the fourth iteration of the lecture he'd gotten today. First Maru, second Dynamite - because she is a team leader and understands responsibility and communication - and third, hilariously, _Windlifter_ , who just stared at Dusty for a full minute before saying _'Next time, use your words,_ ' and rolling off again.

I laugh so hard I nearly tip over, and it's the first time since I've died that I'm actually glad almost nobody can see me.

Blade doesn't lecture him at all, but goes up with him when Dusty takes off for a test flight, and is apparently feeling pretty good, because he does a few acrobatics in the air that impress even me. That encourages Dusty no end, and the kid's doing barrel rolls by the time they're finally ready to bring it in, which... well, he's still in one piece by the time he lands, so apparently he can manage them just fine?

The Smokejumpers finally get to throw the party they've been hoping to throw for five days, certification and yay-you're-alive all in one. They deck the main hanger out with streamers and the old 'Congratulations!' banner that they've been using for years, put Dipper's taped copies of Dusty's races on the television, and set to partying. The entire team is gonna be digging confetti out of their plating seams for a week, but even Blade's smiling, almost showing teeth, happier than he's been in way too long.

It goes on for hours, way past usual sack time, and I'm stargazing out the open doorway when Windlifter rolls over, blows a clump of confetti off his nose and straight through mine, gives me a microscopic smirk, and shifts his eyes to where Dusty is starting to yawn.

Blade notices about the same time, and orders everyone off to bed. There are a few groans, mostly Avalanche, Drip, and Dipper, but everyone disperses pretty quietly. Dusty's one of the last ones out, only Blade and Windlifter lingering behind him to shut off the lights, and I nose at him when he goes by.

"Don't forget to tell Blade about the first-aid training."

And he _jumps_. Actually bounces on his wheels, clearly startled, and turns around to _look at me_.

Wait, what?

No joke, though, the kid's staring at me. Not through me, not like before, and Windlifter's looking at us both now, surprised and a little calculating, which worries me.

"Dusty?" Blade's voice, concerned, like the fact he was actually using the kid's name wasn't proof enough that he's worried.

"I'm okay," Dusty answers, but his gaze never leaves mine. "I just... remembered something, that's all."

"You're not going crazy."

Dusty's eyes flick away from mine, glancing over towards Windlifter. "Are you sure about that?"

Blade's eyeing them like he's afraid they're both going crazy, but stays silent.

"You see him," Windlifter says, not his let-me-confuse-you-with-my-heritage voice but his work voice, the voice you don't doubt or question or argue.

Dusty's eyes flick back to me, reluctant and afraid. "But he's not there!"

Windlifter starts to open his mouth, and I bounce forward to cut him off. "Winds, if you start quoting Shakespeare -"

Windlifter shuts his mouth again. Dusty, bewildered, just echoes "Shakespeare?"

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

All three of us turn around to face Blade - Dusty confused, me startled, Windlifter smug. Blade's staring back at them, looking a little like the world's fallen out from underneath his tires and then reassembled in a completely different shape before he could fall. "Windlifter, the first day I met you, you said the ghost of my past was following me."

The big Skycrane just nods, expectant.

Blade sighs a little, looking like his gear wants to give out under him. "You weren't talking about tabloids, were you?"

I snort, loud enough that the kid jumps, and Windlifter shakes his head a little, at me or Blade or both, who can tell.

"My partner's ghost has been following me since I got here, and it never occurred to you to _mention it_ to me?"

"He _did_ mention it, Blaze, and you didn't talk to him for two months!"

"Two _months_?" Dusty echoes, and Blade glances between him and Windlifter, grimacing faintly.

"Windlifter, forgive me, but how exactly was I supposed to interpret a comment like that from someone I didn't know?"

"Other than badly?" I ask, and Dusty makes a noise like a clogged vent that's probably him trying not to laugh. Windlifter shoots a glance at both of us, and Blade somehow manages to look both sheepish and irritated.

"You would not have believed me."

He's right; Blade never was much for believing in the mystical, but he's gotten a lot more used to it being around Windy's freaky psychic self.

"In which case, why are you -" a glance at Dusty that suggests that's a plural 'you' - "bringing it up now?"

"Because now, you are willing to believe," Windlifter answers, level as ever.

Not 'because I can do x-weird-mystic-thing and actually HELP,' which is what I'd really been hoping for, and all the happy drains out of me as sudden as gas from a punctured tank.

"None of this is gonna help, is it?" I ask, turning to face Windlifter full-on. "Thirty-some years of followin' him around, and nothin's gonna change except now he knows it? I'm just gonna keep being invisible to everyone except for you -"

"What am I, metal filings?" interrupts Dusty.

" - and now Blade's gonna know I'm here and not be able to see me, or talk to me, and that's just - just -"

"Really sad?" Dusty offers, when I break off, fuming.

"Unfair!" I shout back, loud enough that he winces, and great, now I feel guilty, too.

"Life is not fair," Windlifter answers, earning a snort from Blade and a snarl from me.

"I kinda noticed that, Windy, y'know, given that I'm _dead_!"

"I noticed that, Windlifter, when Nick died."

Me and Blade, pretty much simultaneously.

"Do they do that often? Because that's kind of freaky," Dusty comments, glancing between me and Blade, and Windlifter actually _rolls his eyes_.

"All the time," he replies, sighing his 'the incredible stupidity I am witnessing is overwhelming my natural reserve' sigh, before looking back at me. "Nick. Why is Dusty seeing you now?"

What? "How the heck should I know? I don't make up the rules for this slag!"

"There are rules for being a ghost?" Dusty, his expression somewhere between surprise and 'where can I learn more about this?'.

Windlifter has his dealing-with-idiots face on, big time. "Nick." More deliberately, this time. _"Why is Dusty seeing you now?"_

"I just told you," I can do deliberate, weighted speech too, Windy. "I. Don't. Know. I went into his dream, I came out, and he could see me."

Windlifter looks like he's considering rolling his eyes again, but it's actually Dusty who answers. "No, wait, that's not right. I mean, my dreams, yes, which is creepy, by the way, but thank you for waking me up - but I couldn't see you until you talked to me by the door a few minutes ago."

Huh. I sneak a glance at Windy, and his expression has gone from dealing-with-idiots to patient-teacher, which means the kid is probably on the right track. "I touched you, talked to you."

Windlifter's look is moving towards patient-teacher-of-idiots.

"You touched - that was that cold feeling?"

Blade snaps his full attention around to Dusty, his rotors twitching. "Cold feeling?"

"Yeah, heat's a form of energy, and ghosts are some kinda... opposite energy, I don't know, we make cold spots, that's all." I'm sure there's some kinda pseudo-scientific explanation for it, but ghosts make cold, that's enough for me.

"He says ghosts make cold spots," Dusty repeats helpfully, and Blade's expression goes thoughtful.

"That mineshaft... I'd lost consciousness. What woke me up was a feeling of intense cold."

"Me," I confirm, when Dusty and Windlifter both glance my way. "Got scared when I couldn't sense him awake and went right into him in the dark."

Windy's looking at me, patient minus idiots, and I swear I can feel the lightbulb go off. I'm halfway across the hanger in a blink, nuzzling up against Blade, because if it's just acceptance, awareness and touch -

"Blaze, please, come on, I'm here, always been here, please -"

He jerks back, because being macked on by a ghost is gonna be uncomfortable, but his eyes narrow, focus - and fix on mine.

"Nick," he breathes out, disbelieving, but he's _looking at me_ , seeing me, and for the first time in decades he's smiling again, laughing loud enough to fill the hanger. "Nick, you're really -"

"I'm really," I grin back, feeling like my face is gonna split. Behind us, Winds and Dusty slip out, rolling the door quietly shut behind them, leaving Blade and I alone, together.

Guess there's truth in one more old saw, the last one I would've expected. _True love conquers all._


End file.
